


Words Left Unspoken

by babel



Category: Bones (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:01:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25243552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/babel/pseuds/babel
Summary: There are things Zack never told Hodgins.
Relationships: Zack Addy/Jack Hodgins
Comments: 6
Kudos: 55





	Words Left Unspoken

**Author's Note:**

> This is my self-care after getting through the Gormogon arc in Two Thousand and Twenty of the Common Era and feeling frustrated with some things. This is labeled Zack/Hodgins and not Angela/Hodgins, even though they're the ones actually together, because the focus is on Zack. But it's tagged unrequited for a reason, fair warning.
> 
> The title comes from the Depeche Mode song "Precious" because I was listening to that song the whole time I wrote this.
> 
> WARNING: There is a brief discussion of suicide in the third scene.

> "Scientific reasoning is a kind of dialogue between the possible and the actual, between what might be and what is in fact the case." — Sir Peter B. Medawar

* * *

Hodgins brings Zack a box of his things from the lab. He's allowed to keep some things: Angela's drawing, Hodgins' book, Brennan's letter, but the trophy and harmonica have to go. 

When Hodgins leaves, Zack holds the box awkwardly between his bandaged hands and looks at the drawing and reads the letter, both of which Hodgins unfolded for him. He manages to flip open the book to a page with a yellow Post-It note that reads "impractical" in his own boxy handwriting. 

He slides against the nightstand next to his bed and wonders if it's possible that his handwriting will look like that again, when he starts to regain some of his motor skills, or if it will be significantly different.

* * *

When Hodgins visits again, Zack slides a piece of paper across the table.

"Did they let you bring something to write with?"

Hodgins pulls a pen out of his pocket.

"Good. I have a list of things from my room that I would like you to bring. I can tell you exactly where to find them. Anything else, you can just throw away."

"I'm not going to throw away your things."

Zack furrows his brow. "Why not? They don't have any use."

"Yeah, but they're your--" Hodgins gestures vaguely. "You lived there for years."

"I don't see how that's relevant."

"Just tell me what you want me to find for you."

Zack is quiet for a moment. There is a heaviness between them since he's been institutionalized. Or maybe that heaviness was always there, except now they both notice it.

"My favorite shirt from before Angela's makeover."

"The green one?"

"Yes. It's in the chest of drawers on the wall by the door, second drawer down, under three other folded shirts."

Hodgins raises an eyebrow. "Really?"

Zack can tell he finds something either annoying or amusing. Possibly both. It's almost like they're back in the lab.

But they aren't.

"Yes," he answers.

Hodgins shakes his head, smiling a little, and begins to write.

* * *

"Can I ask you something?"

"Technically, you just d--"

"Don't..." Hodgins holds up a hand to stop him. "I get why you wanted most of these things, but I've gotta know about the receipts."

Zack tilts his head. He decides not to point out that Hodgins didn't actually ask a question. "What do you want to know about them?"

"You told me to throw everything else away. All those comics you bought when you got obsessed after that one case, some pretty nice shirts and ties--"

"They don't let me have ties in here."

"Okay, that's--"

"Because they think I might hang myself."

Hodgins takes a deep breath through his nostrils. That's definitely annoyance; no chance there's amusement mixed in this time. "I just want to know why you'd throw all that away, but not your receipts. Some of them are from years ago."

"They're documents."

"Of what? You ordering the same thing at every restaurant you've ever gone to?"

"And other things."

"Like...?"

"Take one out."

Hodgins stares at him like he wanted to refuse, but he doesn't. He reaches into the canvas bag--he'd brought Zack's things in a bag this time, maybe because he noticed he struggled with the box--and fishes out a receipt.

"What does it say?"

"It's from Walmart." He rolls his eyes. "I can't believe you'd go to _Walmart._ "

"It's cheap."

"Yeah, if you don't count the tax on your soul."

Zack shrugs. "I don't believe in souls. What else does it say?"

"You... bought peanut butter, bread, milk, five... _five boxes of Kraft Mac and Cheese_?"

"I like the orange powder."

Hodgins grimaces. "And... Does this say Shoe Goo?"

"So, that's why I kept it."

"Because you bought Shoe Goo."

Zack shrugs. "The heel of one of the shoes I wear with my suit was detaching from rest of the shoe. I needed to fix it before your wedding."

Hodgins is quiet for a long moment, just staring at the receipt. "You kept this because you bought Shoe Goo for my wedding."

"It's a document, like I said."

"We did send out wedding invitations. You could've kept that."

"That's in the shoebox I asked you to bring. Where I keep cards."

"Okay." Hodgins slides the receipt back in the canvas bag, then sets the bag on the table between them. "Y'know, if they matter to you, who am I to argue?"

"You argue with me on most topics."

Hodgins chuckles, shaking his head. "Yeah, well. I'll stop arguing about this one."

Zack reaches for the bag and loops the handle around his forearm. "Even if they let you bring my ties, I wouldn't hang myself with them."

"Okay..."

"For one thing, they don't have the structural integrity for my height and weight. I'd either die very slowly or, more likely, not at all."

" _That's_ the reason?"

"No, but it's a factor. I also wouldn't hang myself with something you brought me."

Hodgins frowns, confused. "What's your logical reasoning for that?"

"You feel guilty for things I do that aren't your fault."

"I..." Hodgins clears his throat. "I don't know how logical that is."

Zack lifts his eyebrows. "It's probably not, but it's you being illogical, not me."

"You could just say you're not going to kill yourself at all, Zack."

"I'm not going to kill myself."

"Okay," Hodgins says. He doesn't look convinced.

* * *

Zack empties out the contents of the canvas bag on his bed.

Two copies of each of Dr. Bennan's books, one copy clean, one copy dog-eared, highlighted, annotated, and full of Post-Its. He stacks them on the shelf by the window that lets in cubes of light between the grating.

The shoebox full of cards. Birthday cards and Christmas cards mostly. The wedding invitation Hodgins mentioned, and a few others from siblings and cousins. He puts the shoebox and the envelope stuffed with receipts with Dr. Brennan's letter and Angela's drawing.

Five notebooks, all full from front to back. He'd told Hodgins they were just full of notes so he wouldn't look in them. It's not a lie. They are notes, but mixed in with the notes about his research and various cases, there are notes about personal things. People he'd met, conversations he'd had, moments which had seemed significant. He'd noticed, at some point, how many of the notes were about Hodgins. It took him a year after he'd noticed to realize what that meant. When he can use his hands again, he'll flip through them like he does whenever he starts to lose track of himself, when he needs something to anchor him. He puts the notebooks on the desk at the foot of his bed.

The green shirt that Hodgins had remembered was his favorite. Flannel pants that he often slept in. A fraying scarf his mother had knit for him when she'd tried to take it up as a hobby. The hat Hodgins had made him wear after he cut his hair short. He puts them away in a drawer. He doesn't plan to wear any of them. The clothes they give him here are fine. 

And now the canvas bag, added to all the other placeholders for memories he can't entirely qualify, all the moments when he felt something he can't express, like Hodgins bringing him his things in a bag so they'd be easier for him to carry back to his room. He hangs it on edge the desk.

When he considers the possibilities, he realizes that the bag might be the last thing he ever owns that's tied to a memory worth keeping.

* * *

Hodgins has been talking about some rare larvae he found on a corpse for the past ten minutes. Zack listens. Zack always listens, whether or not anyone notices. 

But then Hodgins stops, halfway through a sentence, and gets that look on his face that he has a lot now. It's new, and Zack hasn't been able to make sense of it yet, because he doesn't see it in any other context. (There _are_ no other contexts with Hodgins now.) It's an expression that makes the muscle over his infraorbital foramen pull up and his lips get thin and eyes seem strangely bright even though the lighting in this room where they're allowed to meet is always too dim.

"What?" Zack asks.

"Nothing. It's..." Hodgins blows out a breath. "Sweets said something to me. You know how he is with people. Always reading things in."

"Like with Booth and Dr. Brennan."

"No," Hodgins answers quickly. "No, not like with them."

Zack crinkles his nose. "They're the ones he does that with the most. He follows them around and makes conclusions based on very little evidence and--"

"I just mean... I mean, we _all_ know about Booth and Dr. Brennan, right?"

Hodgins smiles expectantly. Zack blinks at him and his smile drops.

"Okay, well _most_ of us know about Booth and Dr. Brennan. It doesn't take however many degrees in psychology to..." Hodgins stops himself, and he gets that look again. "He told me he thinks you have feelings for me."

Zack narrows his eyes. His heart is thumping against his chest. "Feelings?"

"His exact words were that he thinks you're in... y'know love with me. And I told him it was ridiculous, because. I mean, for one thing, you aren't gay."

"I'm not gay," Zack echoes.

"Right, so." Hodgins swallows thickly. "So it's ridiculous."

Zack doesn't say anything, doesn't know exactly what he's expected to say at this point, doesn't even know what he'd _want_ to say.

"It's ridiculous, right?"

Zack opens his mouth to speak, then closes it, furrowing his brow. He probably should've anticipated this, but he didn't. 

"I'm going to need you to actually say..." Hodgins shifts his weight, then leans forward on the table. "You're not... right?"

Slowly, Zack says, "Since I've met you, the only people you've been with are conventionally attractive women."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"It wouldn't be rational to develop 'feelings' for you."

"Not everything's rational."

"It should be."

Hodgins glances down. The look on his face is like the one he gets during a case when he doesn't like the implications of the evidence. "You said that to me before. When I asked you to be my best man."

Zack's heart beats harder, like it does every time Hodgins remembers something he said or did. "I don't fit your criteria for a partner, even before you became fixated on Angela. Even if Dr. Sweets is correct, it would not have any--"

"Why didn't you tell me?" Hodgins eyes snap up to meet Zack's line of sight. Zack wants to look away--he doesn't like eye contact--but he feels frozen. "I've known you for years, and you didn't tell me something like that."

"I considered it," Zack says. His throat is tight, and it makes his voice sound strained.

"Why didn't you?"

Finally, Zack is able to look away, because he doesn't want to see how Hodgins reacts to the next part.

"First, I took your previous romantic and sexual interests into account and came to the conclusion that I already stated." Zack speaks flatly, eyes slightly unfocused, pointed in the direction of the wall behind Hodgins. "I don't fit your criteria. I'm not a woman, and I'm not conventionally attractive. Therefore, if I were to tell you, you would not reciprocate. Given my previous experience with having an unreciprocated romantic interest in someone--which... is every romantic interest I've had, so even if I did fit your criteria, it probably wouldn't have mattered--telling you would have only had negative effects. It would have made working together less productive, and there was a possibility it may have ended our friendship." 

"A possibility that..." Hodgins whispers under his breath. Then, he's quiet. So quiet that, for a moment, Zack can almost imagine that he's not really there. That this is a dream. That he didn't just say all the things he hasn't been saying for years.

But the moment is shattered. "I can't do this," Hodgins says. He pushes away from the table. He stands up. He heads for the door. The orderly let him out.

Zack sits for a while, numb. He's led to his room, and he stands just inside the door. The thought keeps repeating, again and again. He should've lied. He should've regurgitated one of Dr. Brennan's rants about psychology. He should've done anything other than what he did.

He walks to his bed, slides the canvas bag off of the corner of his desk, and sits on the mattress. He looks at it for a long moment, cradled in his bandaged hands. Then, he hugs it to his chest, his eyes squeezed shut.

* * *

The next time Dr. Sweets visits, Zack answers all of his questions with yeses and nos and shrugs.

Eventually, Dr. Sweets asks, "Is something wrong?"

"No," Zack responds.

"You're not saying much."

Zack shrugs.

"Whatever it is, you can talk to me about it."

Zack draws in a slow breath through his nostrils. He could simply shrug again, let Dr. Sweets go on talking for a while until he gives up and leaves. Instead, he says, "There are books in the library here about psychology, which is funny, if you think about it," he says, with no inflection in his voice. "You should tell Booth. He'll think it's funny. He thinks things like that are funny."

"Have... you been reading about psychology, Zack?"

"Yes," Zack says.

Dr. Sweets lifts his eyebrows. An unspoken question.

"When I'm analyzing bones, I start with innumerable possibilities and narrow them down to one based on the evidence." Zack speaks slowly, carefully. "When you're analyzing a person and you start with innumerable possibilities, how do you narrow them down? There are too many variables. If you infer a trait based on an observed behavior, you may be correct, or that behavior may have been caused by the interaction of two completely different traits... or it could have been produced by incentives given various contexts which you may not be aware of. How do you take a living person with so many possibilities and narrow them down to just one?"

Dr. Sweets watches him as he speaks, his eyebrow slightly lifted. He seems to wait until he's sure Zack is finished, then says, "Look, Dr. Addy, I know people like you see what I do as a soft science, but we have our ways of gathering evidence too. I mean, sure, the human mind is complicated, and we don't fully understand it, but... No one ever learned anything--scientific or otherwise--without setting standards and seeing if they work like we expect them to."

"What scientific standard did you use for what you said to Hodgins about me?"

"Ah..." Dr. Sweets smiles a little. "Okay. That's why you're acting like this. Don't worry, I won't infer any traits from this behavior."

"Are you going to answer my question?"

The smile on Dr. Sweets' face is gone now. "It came up in conversation. I wasn't speaking professionally."

"What was the conversation?"

"I don't know if I feel comfortable--"

"You said it wasn't professional," Zack points out. "Therefore, there is no confidentiality. What was the conversation?"

"Look, I totally understand if you're upset about it. I kind of thought he knew? But I'm starting to understand that the interpersonal dynamics in your cluster of friends is..." He blows out a breath. "Pretty complicated. And all of you have underdeveloped social skills."

"I'm not upset," Zack says. "I want to know, so I can fix things when I talk to him next time."

Dr. Sweets' eyes widened with understanding. "So you talked to him about it. You told him how you feel."

"It didn't go very well, so I need to have as much information as possible."

"Okay... Well. I guess I am responsible, so. It came up because he's struggling with his part in what you did."

"I know that. I'm not stupid."

Dr. Sweets ignores him and continues. "He asked me if I thought he'd missed some signs or if he could've done something different. And I said no. I said you'd latched onto things he said because of how you feel about him. Because his relationship with Angela made you fear losing what relationship you did have with him. He asked me what I meant by that, and I said that he had to have noticed that you're in love with him and... I asked if there'd been a relationship in the past. I mean, you did live with him."

Zack feels sick. He wishes Sweets hadn't said anything about Angela. "So... You told him it wasn't his fault, and then you gave him a reason to believe that it was his fault."

"No! What? No..."

"Yes, you did. He thinks that he broke my heart, so I went crazy."

Dr. Sweets only seemed more fascinated. "Did he? Break your heart?

"That's not why I ended up here."

"I agree with that."

"If he had to find out, I didn't want him to associate it with _this_."

Dr. Sweets shakes his head. "You seem to be assuming that he can compartmentalize like you can, but... I'm pretty sure he associates everything the two of you ever said or did with you ending up here."

Zack presses his lips together. His eyes are burning and his nose is tingling, and he has to wait until the sensation goes away before he can speak again. "Tell me what to say to him next time he's here."

"Psychology isn't some kind of magic trick that--"

"I'm not talking about psychology anymore." Zack can hear his voice shaking, but he has to get the words out. "You're better at talking to people than I am. Tell me what I should say to him so that he doesn't stop visiting me, and we can stay friends."

There is sympathy in Dr. Sweets' expression. Zack can recognize it, and he wishes that he couldn't. He prefers Dr. Sweets when he's smug. "You're his best friend, Zack. You're going to have to say what's true for you, and you're going to have to say it the way you say things."

"The way I say things is usually wrong."

"Maybe it is," Dr. Sweets says. "Or maybe the two of you aren't friends by accident. Maybe the way you say things is _right_ for him."

"That's not rational."

"Maybe it's not, but... Y'know, for someone who thinks psychologists are just out to narrow people down to one possibility through behavioral assumptions... you sure narrow _yourself_ down a lot." He pauses, then adds, "I know you feel like you've lost a lot. That doesn't mean there's nothing possible for you anymore."

Zack looks down at the table, at his bandaged hands resting on the smooth, steel surface. His mind is racing. He needs it to slow down, so he thinks about his hands. About the damage beneath. 

He wonders, if some other forensic scientists at some other lab found his decomposing body, what they would think of him. Would they know what had happened to his hands? Would they ever find out why?

* * *

It's nearly two weeks before Hodgins visits again. Previously, the longest interval between visits had been four days, due to a case that kept him at lab for too many hours to find time to drive out.

It gives Zack time to think. When Hodgins dones visit, Zack brings one of his notebooks, the last one he wrote in. He rests his hands over it while he waits for Hodgins to be let in by the guard.

The door opens and closes. Hodgins just stands there, a couple meters into the room, until Zack looks up at him.

"Hey, Zack," he says with the trace of a smile. 

Zack looks back down at the notebook he brought. He wonders if Hodgins doesn't want to get any closer to him because of what he knows now.

"Hi," he says, softly.

"There's just no way to make this not weird, huh?" Hodgins says.

It's quiet. Then, Zack hears the sound of Hodgins' shoes against the ground. By the time Hodgins sits in the chair across from him, Zack is so tense his back hurts.

"Zack, I'm sorry."

Zack's eyes flick up. "About what?"

"About how I left last time. About how long it took me to show up again. It's been..." He shakes his head. "Y'know what, I don't really have an excuse."

"Disgust is a natural reaction. It's the one I expected given your--"

"Whoa whoa whoa. Hold up. I was not disgusted."

"--previous reactions to unattractive women showing sexual interest in you, and to homosexual men in general. I'm kind of a combination. Except I'm not a woman and not homosexual. I think bisexual? I find the terminology confusing."

"Okay, first of all. I'm not homophobic. Maybe I've made some stupid jokes, but..." Hodgins frowns, and Zack chooses not to point out the times he'd said things in earnest. "And second of all, where's this low self-esteem coming from? C'mon, you've always been pretty confident. A little full of yourself, actually."

"It's neither low self-esteem nor confidence to state the truth."

"Calling yourself ugly isn't the truth."

"Attractiveness is based on the perception of others, generally based on various physical traits that our culture has been socialized to favor. I have relatively large eyes, which is favored due to its association with childhood. Other than that... I know how others perceive me based on descriptions of myself I've heard from others. 'Cute' is the most favorable term that--"

"Zack, you're doing the rambling thing you do when you're stressed."

Zack presses his lips together.

"Look," Hodgins says. His voice is gentler now, the way he talks when he's worried about someone. He often uses that tone in response to Angela crossing her arms after he's said the wrong thing. "We need to actually talk about this. I didn't stay away because I was disgusted. I wasn't disgusted. I stayed away, because I keep thinking about the whole time we've known each other. I mean, I was already doing that, but..."

"Because of what I did."

Hodgins closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, then opens them again. "I've just been thinking about it."

"Nothing I did was your--"

"Y'know, if I think about this like a case," Hodgins interrupts. "If I think about you as... someone else. And me as someone else. And I look at the facts. I know what I'd say. I'd say that Hodgins guy was a real asshole who only gave a shit about his best friend when it was convenient and ditched him whenever a new woman came into his life. I'd say he leaned on Zack when he needed someone, because Zack was always there, even if he didn't always seem to listen, even if he didn't always seem to care. Zack never, ever bailed on _him_." There are tears in Hodgins' eyes, so Zack looks back down at the notebook. "I'd say only the worst kind of narcissist doesn't even notice a change when his best friend is going through something this bad."

Carefully, flatly, Zack says, "And one of us would tell you that you're blaming the wrong person. You should blame the person capable of murdering someone."

"I barely even talked to you when you first got back from Iraq, because I was angry at you for going, and I was angry that you hadn't been my best man."

" _Everyone_ barely talked to me when I got back from Iraq."

"Yeah, exactly! Don't you think that's a _problem_?" 

Hodgins was raising his voice, speaking more urgently, but Zack kept his voice at the same volume. "People often avoid speaking to someone when they aren't sure what to say about a difficult situation."

"Fuck that! You're part of the team. We should've tried harder."

"You're just coming up with excuses for what I did."

"And you're coming up with excuses for what _we_ did to you. For what I did. And I think you have been for a long time. I think that's part of the problem. Looking back, I can remember all these times you were looking for approval, and all we did was make jokes."

"Joking is part of the way we show camaraderie. Like friendly competition and--"

"Yeah, it is. Except when it gets real." Hodgins' voice is low again, but just as intense. "And I keep thinking about who everyone would go to when they needed to talk about something real. And I think about how Angela didn't stop being there for Dr. Brennan when we started dating. I think, damn, I really should've still been there for you, except... then I wonder if I was ever there for you in the first place."

Quietly, almost in a whisper, Zack says, "You were there for me."

"I think you just have some really low standards for friendship. I know you didn't have any friends in school. That you got beat up a lot. Compared to that, I'm probably not that bad."

Zack slides the notebook across the table. "I want to show you this."

Hodgins stares down at it, confused, almost startled like the time he'd goaded Zack into punching him. "Your... notes?" 

"Just flip through the pages, and I'll tell you where to stop."

"Okay..."

Hodgins slides the notebook closer to him and opens it to the first page. "Wow," he says. "I don't think I know anyone who covers the whole page from top to bottom. You could've at least used paragraph breaks, man."

"Paragraph breaks are a waste of paper. Keep going."

He flips through the pages. Zack watches the words go by, upside down from his perspective. Hodgins doesn't seem to be registering the personal notes interspersed between the formulas and jargon.

"Stop," Zack says, suddenly. 

Hodgins stops, raises his eyebrow, then looks up at him. "It looks like every other page."

"About a third of the way down."

Hodgins looks skeptical, but he skims the page. Then, his expression changes.

"That's the code you sent me after the Gravedigger--" Zack begins.

"I recognize it." Hodgins furrows his brow. "Why did you want to show me this? Why did you even write this down?"

"It's a document. Look at the bottom of the page. It's a note I made the next morning."

"I don't," Hodgins starts to say, but then his eyes land on what Zack wanted him to see. "What... what is this?"

"You're H. Angela's A."

"I think I cracked that code, Zack," Hodgins says flatly. "It's a little simpler than the one I sent you."

"It's evidence."

Hodgins draws a deep breath. He has that expression that makes his eyes bright. "How is this evidence? What is it evidence of?"

"Booth drove me home that night, because you were in the hospital after we found you. He was weirdly nice about it. Then, the next day, when you came back to the house, you were with Angela."

"So you wrote 'H seems happy with A'?" Hodgins says, his voice soft.

Zack nods. "I think it's generally accepted that if you love someone, you want them to be happy. This is evidence that I accepted your relationship with Angela and was not pursuing you."

Hodgins looks back down at the notebook, his thumb hovering slightly over the words, gliding over them. "What... what's all this between the code I sent you and... and your evidence?"

"I couldn't sleep that night, so I read some volumes of Medical Anthropology Quarterly and American Anthropology that I hadn't gotten to yet, and there were articles I wanted to discuss with Dr. Brennan later."

"You couldn't sleep."

Zack's heart is beating hard again. "We thought you were dead. Your time ran out before I figured out the code. It would've been my fault, because I was panicking."

"I didn't know you took that so badly."

"I..." Zack swallows. His throat feels dry. "Other than my family, you and Dr. Brennan are more important to me than anyone else. And you could have both died because I was panicking and couldn't think. The one thing I'm good at, and when it mattered, I couldn't do it."

Hodgins reaches across the table and rests his hand over Zack's wrist. Zack stares down at it. "You're human, Zack."

"I wish I weren't," he says.

"I know." They're both quiet for a moment before Hodgins pulls his hand away and pushes the notebook back across the table. "You didn't have to show me evidence, y'know."

"I wanted you to understand."

"I think you're the one who doesn't understand."

Zack frowns. "What do you mean?"

"Well..." he says. "It's a pretty rare person who'd really be glad someone they love is happy with someone else."

Zack's frown deepens. "You're right. I don't understand."

Hodgins is smiling at him, but his eyes look sad. He gets to his feet. "I have to go. But I'll be back to visit soon this time, okay?" 

"Okay."

He rounds the table, gesturing for Zack to get up. He does, and Hodgins hugs him. Zack is very still at first. Then, slowly, he bends his arms so that he can return the hug.

"I'm sorry things are like this," Hodgins murmurs. Then, he pulls out of the hug. "You're always going to be my best friend, okay? No matter what happens."

"Considering what I've done to test that so far, I find that statement believable."

Hodgins stares at him for a moment, then, without warning, he begins to laugh. Zack finds himself smiling. Hodgins' laugh always makes him smile. It's been a long time since he's heard it.

* * *

When they take the bandages off his hands, they let Zack have a computer in his room. It's an old, boxy model with no connection to the internet and limited programs, but it has a word processor. He hunts-and-pecks on the keyboard with his right middle finger and his left index finger, which are the two that seem to have the most strength. It's frustratingly slow, but it's better than nothing.

He starts out: "H brought my things from the lab in a box. H brought my things from my room in a bag. I kept the bag."

He saves the document in a folder called Notebook 6. He sits still for a while, staring blankly at the computer screen. Then, he takes out his first notebook and flips through it. Toward the middle, he finds the note he's looking for.

_H referred to me as his friend while on a personal call at the lab. This is the first time he's called me that. Asked A if she thought he meant it, and she said 'of course he did'._

He reads it a few more times, smiling to himself, until the warning buzzer from the hallway sounds and the lights of the institution go out for the night. In the darkness, where no one can see him, he rests his head on his desk, his cheek pressed against the pages of his notebook. 

He tries to imagine himself back there, in that moment when Hodgins was on the phone and Zack was watching him with wonder, his heart thumping in his chest because someone, for the first time, had called him his friend. 

When things are quiet and no one is around, he lives in that moment. That moment when anything was possible.


End file.
